School of Geographical and Earth Sciences

Dr Hester Parr

Hester Parr
  • Reader (School of Geographical and Earth Sciences)

email: Hester.Parr@glasgow.ac.uk


My research includes work on qualitative social geographies of mental health, disability and illness. My work has focused on both urban and rural experiences of community care with an emphasis on service user narratives and experiences. Recently my work has diversified to include how lay populations access and understand health and medical information via virtual space (the Internet). Over the last 12 years I have been interested in developing new methodologies for working with often vulnerable people. As a result I have interests and experience in overt and covert ethnographies, collaborative film-making, focus groups, interviews-on-the-move, internet surveys and email-based research relationships, telephone interviewing and co-writing. I am also interested in geographies of emotions, embodiment and creativity with respect to health and well-being. I have have been funded by the ESRC in 3 major research projects on mental health related research.

From 2010/11 I will be working on an ESRC funded project 'Geographies of Missing People: experiences, processes, responses' (Hester Parr, PI, Nick Fyfe, Dundee CI, Penny Woolnough Grampian Police, CI) £535K FEC. This project will work with police forces in Scotland and London and the Missing People charity to investigate the geographies of missing persons and the geographical knowledges of the people and agencies that search for them. See http://www.sipr.ac.uk/networks/missing_persons.php

Biography

I was awarded BA (Geography)from University of Wales (Lampeter) in 1991. I went on to complete a PGCE (Geography and Expressive Arts) in secondary education from Manchester Metropolitan University (1992) before returning to Lampeter to undertake my PhD in Lampeter (awarded 1997). I taught human geography at the University of Dundee between 1997 and 2008, during which time I was an ESRC research fellow from 2004-2007. I joined the University of Glasgow in 2009.

Jump to: 2012 | 2010 | 2008 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
Number of items: 11.

2012

Parr, H. (2012) Psychic life. In: Del Casino, V., Thomas, M., Panelli, R. and Cloke, P. (eds.) A Companion to Social Geography. Blackwell, Oxford. (In Press)

Parr, H., Stevenson, O. , Fyfe, N., and Woolnough, P. (2012) Geographies of missing people: processes, experiences and responses. In: Scottish Institute for Policing Research: Annual Report 2011. Scottish Institute for Policing Research.

2010

Donaldson, J., and Parr, H. (2010) Enabling cultures of dis/order online. In: Chouinard, V., Hall, E. and Wilton, R. (eds.) Towards Enabling Geographies : 'Disabled' Bodies and Minds in Society and Space. Ashgate. ISBN 9780754675617

Parr, H., and Donaldson, J. (2010) Mental and emotional health. In: Brown, T., McLafferty, S. and Moon, G. (eds.) A Companion to Health and Medical Geography. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781405170031

2008

Parr, H. (2008) Mental Health and Social Space : Towards Inclusionary Geographies? Blackwell. ISBN 9781405168922

Parr, H., and Donaldson, J. (2008) Virtual trust: online emotional intimacies in mental health support. In: Brownlie, J., Greene, A. and Howson, A. (eds.) Researching Trust and Health. Routledge. ISBN 9780415958516

2005

Philo, C., Parr, H. , and Burns, N. (2005) "An oasis for us": 'in-between' spaces of training for people with mental health problems in the Scottish Highlands. Geoforum, 36 . pp. 778-791. (doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2005.01.002)

2004

Parr, H., Philo, G. , and Burns, N. (2004) Social geographies of rural mental health: experiencing inclusions and exclusions. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographe, 29 (4). pp. 401-419. ISSN 0020-2754 (doi:10.1111/j.0020-2754.2004.00138.x)

Philo, C., and Parr, H. (2004) 'They shut them out the road': Migration, Mental Health and the Scottish Highlands. Scottish Geographical Journal, 120 . pp. 47-70.

2003

Parr, H., Philo, C. , and Burns, N. (2003) 'That awful place was home': Reflections on the contested meanings of Craig Dunain asylum. Scottish Geographical Journal, 119 . pp. 341-360.

Philo, G., Parr, H. , and Burns, N. (2003) Rural madness: a geographical reading and critique of the rural mental health literature. Journal of Rural Studies, 19 (3). pp. 259-281. ISSN 0743-0167 (doi:10.1016/S0743-0167(03)00005-6)

This list was generated on Sat May 26 16:45:04 2012 BST.

I have have been funded by the ESRC in 3 major research projects on mental health related research.

From 2010/11 I will be working on an ESRC funded project 'Geographies of Missing People: experiences, processes, responses' (Hester Parr, PI, Nick Fyfe, Dundee CI, Penny Woolnough Grampian Police, CI) £535K FEC. This project will work with police forces in Scotland and London and the Missing People charity to investigate the geographies of missing persons and the geographical knowledges of the people and agencies that search for them. See http://www.sipr.ac.uk/networks/missing_persons.php